Mariners eye championship

Homer smashes Thunder Mountain, 44-26, in semifinal game in Juneau

JUNEAU — The Mariners are headed to the state championship title game after defeating the Thunder Mountain High School Falcons 44-26 on Friday night in the ASAA medium schools state semifinal at Falcons Field in Juneau.

“This is our second trip to the state championship game and it has certainly been a tough year for this team,” said Dr. Allan Gee, HHS principal. “However, we are going to field a team of kids who will represent our school well and I hope the community will come out and support them.”

Bill Byouer, TMHS coach, said Saturday’s gave was “smash-mouth football. Both teams were smashing. I feel for the seniors. It was their last game.”

Thunder Mountain played to earn respect. Homer played to keep it.

The Falcons, just four years into their football life, were seeking legitimacy with a semifinal home playoff win. The Falcons fell to the Mariners in this same game last season.

“We came out to play,” Falcons junior Ofeina Soakai said. “We knew this was our last home game and wanted to get our seniors farther.”

The Mariners, a team steeped in tradition, were trying to leave behind recent events that have ripped their community apart. Homer player Joseph Resetarits, 18, and his brother, 20-year-old Anthony Resetarits, were arrested Thursday — the day the team left for Juneau — on one count each of second-degree sexual assault.

Homer Coach Camron Wyatt said in a recent unrelated incident a classmate and friend of the players had died.

“I have coached for 25 years and this was a challenge on the field and off the field from the get go,” Wyatt said. “This was difficult. Our program is about building strong people that make good choices; and today was all about persevering, facing adversity and trying our best on the field. These are just kids, so their strengths come from their team. This is what they have.”

The Mariners took the opening kickoff and marched 70 yards to the end zone but fumbled. The Falcons took over and had the ball just slightly over two minutes before punting possession away.

Homer would have the ball for 18 minutes and 50 seconds during the first half, while the Falcons were on offense just five minutes.

At the first quarter’s 3:36 mark, on their second possession, Homer quarterback Mark McGregor rumbled 58 yards for the first of his three rushing touchdowns and then passed the conversion to Konstanin Reutov for an 8-0 lead.

“It was too much arm tackling,” Byouer said. “We have had that problem all season. We had them where we wanted but they just ran through our tackles.”

TMHS senior quarterback Villi Topou slung a 41-yard pass to senior Chris Mack to start the second quarter and pull the Falcons to within two points.

Homer’s McGregor connected with running back Konstantin Reutov for 35 yards and a touchdown on the ensuing possession to push the advantage to 10 points.

The Falcons narrowed ball possession to within a minute of the Mariners in the second half, attacking through the air and forcing Homer to use their umbrella, or, two deep defense.

Topou spread the Mariners out and then ran in a nine-yarder to pull the Falcons within four points, 16-12 at the nine-minute mark of the third quarter.

The Mariners answered after four minutes of possession on a 54-yard run by Reutov.

On their ensuing possession, Mack gave the Falcons good field position on consecutive rushes but was lost for the remainder of the game with a concussion. Falcons senior Joe Ia streaked past the defensive coverage to haul in a Topou 25-yarder for the Falcons second TD of the period.

Topou ran in the conversion to close within two at 22-20.

“My kids haven’t quit all year,” Byouer said. “They know they don’t have any respect in the Juneau football community and we won’t have it until we take care of the Homers and the Skyviews. We have to step up and be more disciplined as a football team. We had our moments tonight but then we relaxed. My hats off to Homer. They came up here and showed resilience.”

The Mariners sealed the win with three touchdowns in the fourth quarter. McGregor ran for 34 yards and a score at the 9:24 mark to give the Mariners an eight-point advantage at 28-20.

The Falcons fielded the ensuing kick off on the Homer 36 but went four and out. McGregor tore off another 30 yarder into the end zone for a 34-20 lead and Tommy Bowe ran in the conversion.

Senior John Jolly took a V. Topou pass and ran for 11 yards to pull within 10 points but the Mariners answered back, moving down the field 73 yards and letting Bowe run in the last 13 for a 42-26 lead. McGregor ran in the conversion for the final score.

The play was especially sweet for McGregor as he ran through a hole formed by Mariners first-year sophomore center Gage Flyum.

Flyum was filling in for Resetarits.

“I just needed to take a deep breath and focus on the game,” Flyum said. “I knew it was a really big game. I just needed to understand what I was supposed to do. All I did was breathe and snap the ball. I just played football.”

Wyatt said the players did a good job of dealing with all the speculation and criticism surrounding the arrest of Resetarits. The coach said the team learned of the arrest at 10 a.m. Thursday, and left on the bus at 11:15 a.m. that day.

There were other Homer High School students at the Sept. 8 teenage drinking party where Alaska State Troopers allege Joseph and Anthony Resetarits sexually assaulted an extremely drunk boy.

Wyatt said due to student confidentiality agreements he cannot disclose which football players were suspended for being present at a drinking party and the duration of the suspensions.

“I can say that the ASAA policy was followed and kids have been punished and missed activities,” he said. “They were held accountable, and they continue to be held accountable.”

Wyatt said Homer did not have all its players in Juneau.

“We went big in a lot of plays,” McGregor said. “We didn’t have all of our players here so we risked more, but you have to do that to get the win.”

According to McGregor, a few players made a bad decision off the field by being in the wrong place, along with other kids from other sports programs, and they were punished.

“Not just football players,” McGregor said. “We were really down reading what the community thought of us, even though we had nothing to do with what happened.”

He continued, “My jersey doesn’t have my name on it. My jersey says Mariners and it stands for Homer. To our supporters I say stay positive, go to our state game and cheer for us. We are playing for you.”

Wyatt said this has been a tough time for himself, his players and his program. His aim was to create a program for change and a positive experience for the players, and emphasized the incident at the party should not reflect on all of his players.

“One is too many,” Wyatt said of the suspensions. “But gosh, to stereotype and put that on all these kids. The emotional roller coaster ride of trying to process all of that and then putting a football game of this caliber, a playoff game, on top of that ... wow.”

Homer faces Soldotna, a 62-7 winner over Kodiak, for the state medium-school championship at 7 p.m., Saturday at Chugiak High School’s Tom Huffer Sr. Stadium. Wyatt is not sure exactly who will be on his roster for that game.

“It’s about those kids that are going to go and play Saturday wearing the blue and gold,” Wyatt said. “The kids that are going to be out on that field are going to be the ones that deserve to be out there.”

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